


Therapon

by devluna



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Codependency, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, POV Alternating, Pre-Series, Protective Sam Winchester, Religious Content, possible abuse of commas and runons and fragments and other various grammar atrocities, rating for language and brief descriptions of violence, wincest if you squint and tilt your head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 10:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5741083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devluna/pseuds/devluna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's praying, but it's not for mercy and it's not for a miracle, because both are free and everything comes at a price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Therapon

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: None, unless you’re sensitive to religious discussion. I’m not deliberately trying to step on toes but I’m not Christian and neither is Sam in this story, so if that kind of thing bothers you—you might want to skip this one. 
> 
> (Also, and tagged for safety, wincest if you squint… but written more as the actual unhealthy codependency that's pure canon Winchester.)
> 
> Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine. The Iliad is also not mine—all quotes taken from Robert Fagle's translation.

 

> _No, you must turn back _—__  
>  _soon as you bring the light of victory to the ships._  
>  _Let the rest of them cut themselves to pieces on the plain!_  
>  _Oh would to god—Father Zeus, Athena and lord Apollo _—__  
>  _not one of all these Trojans could flee his death, not one,_  
>  _no Argive either, but we could stride from the slaughter_  
>  _so we could bring Troy’s hallowed crown of towers  
>  __toppling down around us—you and I alone!  
>  _             Achilles speaking to Patroclus, _Iliad_ 16.112-119

 

He might’ve been the only one not irritated at the overly ambitious literature teacher. But, Sam Winchester wasn’t raised to do things half way, and he devoured the whole of the _Iliad_ when they’d so far only been assigned a few chapters.

The death and the violence intrigued him, but probably not for the same mundane reasons that captured the attention of the few other devoted students still doing the readings as well. Violence was violence, and there’s probably a reason it’s a popular genre of movies all on its own, why there are museums dedicated to the history of torture, and why people slow down to look at the wrecks on the highway. But he couldn’t fathom how casual the violence was, how non-realistic and beautiful—dripping, writhing agony wrapped in ripped up flower petals.

“…and the dark came swirling thick across his eyes,” how poetic, 

“…and red death came plunging down his eyes, and the strong force of fate,” how exquisite.

If Homer were real, and Sam really did muse on whether that was very likely, he must not have seen death all that up close. If he did, he obviously liked the look, death as an aesthetic to paint his words in and around and about.

A spear to the throat, a boulder to the head, inner organs cascading to the ground. But oh, the soldiers only trembled. They only crashed, but with a graceful sort of descent, like they were almost at peace with it, like they weren’t in utter misery. Like they would’ve actually died immediately, like their eyes actually would’ve been dim by the time they hit the dust and the dirt.

Words like agony and pain used delicately and carefully, poised just so, in a way that makes your eyes glide over them. They’re there, if you were to go back and to look for them. But they’re not the point, not when pain is art at its highest form.

Page after page, and it was almost too much. The now less ambitious, but appreciably more experienced literature teacher reiterated the phrase “ten-year war” in his monologue, and the class tittered and generally felt very sorry for the fictional Aegean and Trojan armies, to have fought a war for that long, to have killed and slaughtered and been away from home for so, so very long.

The true poetry lay in the quiet boy in the corner of the room, who’d been in a war since before he could walk, and while the class reluctantly offered up opinions on war ethics and the individual responsibility of a soldier for his part in the casualties of war, Sam thought about how ten years weren’t actually all that long at all. 

* * *

When Dean came out of the bathroom after his turn in the shower, he looked up to find Sam busy unpacking and repacking his duffel… again. _Freak_. Dean stared at him until he finally looked up, irritated.

 _Inventory_ , Sam muttered, which didn’t make much sense to Dean. But nothing Sam did made much sense, so he figured he could roll with it. Hell, it wasn’t like it was bothering anybody if his brother kept a list of the number of rolls of socks he kept in his duffel, how many pairs of jeans and how many books.

 _Damnit_ was all Dean had time to think when their dad walked in and settled his eyes on Sam doing his packing and repacking routine. John was, apparently, a person bothered by it. John was bothered by pretty much anything Sam did these days, and the feeling was decidedly mutual.

John being bothered about something generally didn’t translate to Sam being bothered, and Dean wasn’t really all that surprised to see Sam ignore the barked command to _go run or do something else useful_ , because _haven’t you ever heard that command about honoring your father_?

Not that John was religious, except for all the times that he was—when it was convenient. Inconvenient for him, then, that Sam had read the Bible, and he was quite prepared for this conversation. Dean may not approve of the disrespect, but _damn_. His baby brother had balls for calmly opening the Bible from the motel room’s nightstand table, opening to a particular page, and then proceeding to shove it into his father’s increasingly red face.

Sam silently tapped the passage he clearly thought would end the argument. John read it, stormed out.

Dean read it, and thought _huh_. [Luke 2:41-52](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%202:41-52&version=KJV) _, where the hell have you been hiding._ It made sense, really. Why should Sam think to honor his earthly father, if the Son of God didn’t even honor His?

He startled when Sam gently took the book out of his hands and walked over to the trashcan, tilting his head a little, contemplating the sacrilege he was about to commit before going ahead and committing it. The little shit. Dean wasn’t a big believer either, but he at least flinched when the book hit the bottom with a dull _thud_. 

Sam didn’t, and his worn copy of the _Iliad_ took the Bible’s previous position in the nightstand. That, at least, wasn’t surprising. In Sam’s opinion, if Alexander the Great could consider it near a holy book and always slept with it, then there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to keep his copy beside him as well. Dean couldn’t really find a way to counter that idea, so he never did.                          

* * *

Physical objects were easiest to count, the clothing, the toiletries, the few books, his few personal weapons. Paltry offers to be sure, but they were his and they were important to him, and that had to somehow count for something in a symbolic way. The intangibles, and the things that might as well be intangible, were more difficult.

Difficult, but not impossible. And, after all, it’s not like there’s a literal ancient Greek word for _toothbrush_ anyways.

Sam had 206 bones, 78 organs, and approximately 8.5 liters of blood in his body. He was growing fast, so it was hard to know for sure. There was the obvious—2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 hands, and so on. But the numbers were concrete, and they were good for his purposes.

He also offered up his loyalty, his intellect, his future—however many years he had left, and he would leave it up to the Fates to quibble on the exact number.

He has to be ready. He has to be prepared. Dean is too reckless for his own good, and Sam needs to be ready to barter and trade and sacrifice. God, he thinks he might be willing to sacrifice anything to save him.

He can feel it, somewhere deep in his borrowed, promised bones, that his list will come in handy soon, no matter how weird Dean might think he is for keeping it.

* * *

Shaky hands, clammy and slick with sweat. But Sam had done this before, and he would have to do it again. Focused and measured and deliberate breaths in, and out, and in-

Dean’s eyes fluttered. He struggled to stay awake, to keep that swirling mist from setting over his vision, to focus on his brother.

Sam was muttering now, chanting, praying. But not to God. Not to the God with a capital G, and that definitely made a sort of woozy yet crystal clear sense to Dean. The prayer was beautiful, even if he couldn’t quite make out the words flowing out of his brother’s mouth. Freely, smoothly, obviously practiced words lulling and tempting him to close his eyes again. But Sam wouldn’t want that, so he kept them open. Or, he at least kept them open in increments, because you could only do so much with a trail of blood leading straight from the door to where your body was dragged onto a bed.

Honestly, Dean was kicking ass at this staying alive and awake thing.

Mostly, he really wanted to understand the words, because they sounded familiar but indistinct. It might’ve just been the drugs Sam had pushed into his mouth sluggishly working their way through is system, sliding the words in and out of place in his brain.

Might’ve, but wasn’t, and _fuck_ , when did Sam learn a language that sounded that old.

* * *

It was ancient Greek, with a few modifications thrown in for that little bit of crackling _oomph_ , but Sam wasn’t going to stop praying long enough to answer the silent question in Dean’s eyes. Dean would live, and go back to being his normal rambunctious, obnoxious self, and Sam could keep his prayers to himself a little while longer. They were personal after all, and if Sam were in a giving sort of mood, he might even admit they weren’t all that ethically sound given the power he’d woven throughout the words, calling and binding and compelling. 

A normal person might pray to the God with a capital G at times like this, when there’s blood running down and dripping obscenely off the arm of the only person he’s ever cared about, when life is steadily seeping out of that person’s veins and soaking dirty motel carpet. It’s probably not even the first splash of blood to soak through that patch. 

But Sam’s not a normal person, and he is very aware of that fact, and he is not about to pray for something as fickle as mercy. Mercy is for people who aren’t part of what remains of the Winchester family, who just want a reprieve from the fallout of a speeding ticket or the reality of a daughter’s newly awakened sexuality. As if those things were life and death, as if they even mattered when someone out there, someone like Sam, had a brother bleeding to death.

So no, Sam doesn’t pray for mercy from a perfect, benevolent God on a golden throne. Mercy isn’t free, not really, and it’s really much easier to strike a bargain when you know the terms. He prays to the gods who aren’t judicious, or pious, or even really all that good.

They’re cruel, and yes, they’re merciless. But they are also selfish and greedy. They love their sacrifices, and Sam can work with that. Mercy is arbitrary and random and not at all trustworthy. That’s the point—not getting what fate wants to give you. Sam likes absolutes, and certainties, and numbers.

Sam’s the kind of guy who would take door number one even if he knew it wasn’t as good, just because door number one was open and door number two was closed. Why risk opening the door to the unknown? 

But door metaphors are for new cars with big bows slapped on top, so maybe it’s not the best example. But Dean’s the risk here, and there’s no taking chances on something as precious as Dean’s life.

Sam wants Dean’s life, he covets it, and he’s willing to pay for it. The old gods loved that sort of thing. Got angry when they didn’t get it, truth be told. Sacrifices kept the world going round, and Sam’s ready to make his. You don’t get something for nothing.

* * *

The next morning Dean was still in pain, if his face was that scrunched up even in sleep. But he was alive, and Sam carefully avoided thinking about what portions of his offering he was taken up on for that generous allowance.

It wouldn’t matter anyway. Humming softly, rubbing his thumb across Dean’s cheekbones, soothing him back to deeper sleep, Sam decided there was nothing he was unwilling to sacrifice for him, for his brother, for _this_.

Nothing, and no one.

 

> _Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all,_  
>  _that fatal madness—she with those delicate feet of hers,_  
>  _never touching the earth, gliding over the heads of men  
>  __to trap us all. She entangles one man, now another.  
>  __Iliad_ , 19.106-109

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve never written anything before, but I die for the classics and the Iliad (and the treasure that is The Song of Achilles—seriously, bury me with a copy of both in my arms for the afterlife). Somewhat OOC because canon Sam IS religious, but in a way that I felt the show went oddly out of its way to paint as naive. Maybe that’s just looking at the story from Dean’s perspective (as I tend to do). This is an exploration of how he might’ve approached religion differently in another life.
> 
> Did I mention baby's first fic? Comments are appreciated, but please be kind. 
> 
> Other notes: As far as I’m aware, the thing about Alexander the Great is true. According to my very knowledgeable Russian History professor, he fucking loved that book and slept with a copy annotated by his tutor, Aristotle. 
> 
> The Bible passage is how I’ve always interpreted it, because I never could wrap my head around the concept that Jesus wasn’t being a snarky little shit to his parents. Obviously, that is not the majority consensus—it’s an opinion. This whole fic is self-indulgent, in that religion and mythology are what I study.
> 
> The first Iliad quote fragment is from 5.52, the second from 5.91-92.


End file.
